What's So Great About Parties?
by Shane C
Summary: Marco talks Jake and Rachel into going to a party with him. Nothing especially deep happening here, just a look at some middle-of-the-war Animorphs trying to have some fun. One shot. T for underage drinking/mild violence.


**A/N – **Full disclosure – if you're looking for a deep, meaningful Animorphs one-shot, this is not the fic for you. It's just what might have happened if Marco had talked some of the others into attending a party. If you do read, I'd appreciate a review.

**What's So Great About Parties?**

'_Stupid,' _I told myself as I walked down the street to Marco's place. '_So stupid. A party? Am I really going to a party?_'

Even though I was berating the idea as I passed the last few houses before Marco's, I couldn't deny that I was a little excited. I was sadly out of touch with my peers, and I found myself wondering about the party out in the Estates. What would people be wearing? What would they be listening to?

As I came up on Marco's house, I saw two figures standing in the dark in his driveway. Jake and Marco. Jake was the only one besides me Marco had been able to talk into going. Tobias had flat-out refused to go when I'd asked him, claiming that skipping parties was one of the only good things about being stuck as a hawk. Cassie had gleefully explained that her dad needed her help on a dangerous reptile capture, so she was excused. Jake wasn't quick enough to think up a lie when Marco had asked him, I guess, so he was standing in the driveway with his best friend.

Marco was already doing spastic dance moves interspersed with karate – I guess he was excited. I mean, I was curious and sort of looking forward to it, but Marco was jazzed up. "Rachel!" he called when he spotted me, doing some stupid karate chops my way. "You ready for some world-class fun?"

Jake rolled his eyes and I shoved Marco as I walked up to join them. "I'm here. I'll put it that way," I said as dryly as I could manage. "So are we flying there or what?"

Jake rolled his eyes again, and Marco acted shocked at the suggestion. "What, us? Us normal, fun-loving, hard-partying, All-American teenagers, morph? No, no, not tonight." He eyeballed the outfit I'd chosen, a khaki skirt and red ladies' polo. Low-key, but still nice. "Besides, showing up to a party in leotards is a no-no."

"So how are we getting there?" I pressed. The Estates were on the outskirts of town, and I sure wasn't walking.

"Fat Matt," Marco said, as if that explained everything.

I gave up and looked at Jake. "Please say something that makes sense to me," I said.

He grinned and shrugged. "Apparently, Fat Matt – whoever that is – is picking us up."

"Fat Matt _rules_," Marco said, once more karate chopping the air. "I can't believe you guys don't know him."

Before I could answer, a honking, swerving, music-blaring SUV pulled onto Marco's street and gunned it toward us. As Fat Matt pulled into the driveway (catching a good piece of Marco's lawn along with it) at about twenty-five MPH, he hit the brakes and skidded to a stop approximately five feet away from us. "Marco! Yeah, Marco! Get in!" the guy driving leaned his head out of the window and yelled.

Marco cackled like this reckless guy was the funniest dude on the planet. "Shotgun!" he yelled, not bothering with the door as he slid into the passenger's seat through the window, Dukes of Hazzard-style. I shot Jake a look, which he returned – I was supposed to get into a car with this maniac? I expected to die during this war…but not in an SUV rollover on the way to a party.

"What's up with your friends?" I heard Fat Matt ask over the music, which he'd obnoxiously not turned down. "They coming or not?"

Marco pulled his top half out of the car and gave us a meaningful look. "Yeah, they're coming, because they're _normal. _And _normal _people take rides from their friends to parties."

I sighed, figuring that this was going to be how it all ended, but I got into the back seat. Jake did the same, looking more frightened of Fat Matt's jeep than he ever had while facing death at the hands of the Yeerks. "Could you at least turn it down?" I yelled over the heavy bass. Matt shot Marco a look like, 'how lame,' but did as I asked as he peeled out of the driveway and drove toward the edge of town.

"You're Rachel, right? And Jake?" Matt asked us without turning around. I wasn't offended – at least the guy was keeping his eyes on the road.

"Yeah," Jake said. "Thanks for the ride."

"No big deal. Rachel." He said my name, but it was clear he was talking to himself. He snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah! I know you! You were in my history class last year, with Farmer. Didn't Farmer send you to the office for telling him to shut up?"

I didn't remember Fat Matt from the class, but I remembered the incident he was talking about very well. Jake had chewed me out good for it. It was after some battle or another, and I was tired and frazzled and not in the mood to be fooled with. Mr. Farmer had asked me a question, which of course I didn't know the answer to. Instead of embarrassing me and leaving it at that, he'd insisted that I find the answer in the book and recite it while the whole class waited. I think my exact words had been, "Go to hell," but "shut up" worked just as well for the sake of the story.

"Yeah, something like that," I said.

He seemed impressed, anyway. "That's cool. Well, if you're friends of Marco's, you're mine, too. Here we are," he parked on the street in front of a house.

When I say that we were in the Estates, I mean it. This was the part of town where the houses were separated by golf courses instead of yards. We were in front of an enormous, three-story, brick monstrosity, but that wasn't the first thing I noticed. I actually felt pretty well assaulted by everything going on as I opened the door and got out of the truck.

There were maybe thirty kids milling around on the front lawn. Every single one of them that I could see had a red plastic cup in their hand. Some of them looked familiar from school; others I may or may not have ever seen before. A small crowd was gathered around two guys, who were beating the hell out of each other with boxing gloves.

Fat Matt had ditched us on arrival; Marco, Jake and I formed a small group as we walked to the house. Marco stopped to exchange greetings and high-fives with a couple of people on the way, but I didn't know any of them.

When Marco pulled the front door open, the yelling and music almost blew me backward off of the porch. He took a second to flash me and Jake a cocky grin, then squeezed his way into the party. Jake shrugged and followed him, so I went in, too.

The party was chaos. A drunk guy was dancing on top of what looked to be a fifteen-thousand dollar pool table in the living room. A few of the kids had started an impromptu mosh pit on the dining room floor. Almost everybody was yelling. I looked around, realizing it had taken me all of ten seconds to lose Jake and Marco in the melee. I was about to turn around and leave before I realized somebody was talking to me.

I recognized the guy immediately – Todd, the quarterback for the football team. I didn't really know him, but that was a good thing. I knew – well, knew _of _– most of the popular kids from tales of their exploits. Most of them were ridiculously stupid or mean in nature, and I disliked them on principle. The fact that I didn't know much about Todd inclined me to believe that he was probably a decent guy.

Decent or not, I didn't have a clue what he was saying. The music was too loud. I pointed to my ear and winced, and he seemed to catch on immediately. I let him lead me through the kitchen – where he stopped to make a couple of drinks – and through the back door.

There were a few kids splashing around in the pool, but it was the very end of summer. Most of the partygoers, drunk or not, had been smart enough to stay out of the chilly water. It still wasn't quiet out back, but after the mind-numbing volume of the house, it seemed almost silent.

Todd sat down on a wrought-iron chair and gestured for me to take one, too. He handed me one of the cups in his hand and grinned.

I took it from him, but set it on the table beside us. "I don't drink," I said automatically, though I didn't have a moral objection to it or anything.

Todd seemed unbothered by it as he shrugged. "That's cool. I'm Todd," he offered his hand.

"I know," I told him, and he actually seemed to blush a little bit. "Rachel."

"I know," he said back. "We've had, like, ten classes together in the past two years."

"Sorry," I said, not apologizing, just to have something to say.

"Anyway…sorry for dragging you out here," he said with a practiced, handsome smile. "You looked like you needed a rescue. If not…well, sorry for pulling you away from the party."

I laughed and picked up the drink he'd given me. I sniffed it, decided it smelled okay, and took a sip. Not bad. I looked up to see him looking at me with a questioning look.

I laughed again. "I really _don't _drink. Especially not drinks that strangers give to me at a party," I explained. "You seem like a nice enough guy, though. I figure I can trust you not to roofie me."

I couldn't tell if he was serious as he said, "If I were going to roofie somebody, it wouldn't be you. Wouldn't be great for the old ego to get my ass kicked by a girl."

I looked at him sideways. "Is that what people say about me?"

He just grinned. "Maybe. I don't judge people on gossip, though, so it's all good."

We got to talking. He was a cool kid, really likable. I tried not to be attracted to him, but I couldn't help it. The best I could do was going to be to promise myself not to act on it. I had Tobias to think about.

I don't know how long the two of us sat outside, just talking, only that it was long enough for him to have to leave me alone for a moment to get us refills on our drinks. Lots of people passed by us, and all of them wanted to talk to Todd, but he diplomatically dismissed them in turn and saved all of his attention for me. I still had Tobias in mind, but Todd had a way of making me want to forget about that situation. It made me feel guilty, but another part of me didn't really care. Maybe it was the alcohol – that's what I would tell myself later, anyway.

"Hey, you don't have a boyfriend or anything, do you?" Todd asked out of nowhere. I just looked at him, and he blushed again. "It's not like that. I just…I don't know. I like you, and I'd definitely still talk to you if you had one. But I don't want to come on too strong if you're seeing somebody. If we're going to be just friends, I want to know that from the beginning, you know?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," I lied. I even justified the lie to myself by thinking, '_He's not a _boy_, so it's not a lie._' "But in the interest of being honest, I don't really want one, either." Honest? What a joke; what a liar I was. Maybe it was the war that had made me that way.

"Why?" he asked, keeping my eyes with his.

I just shook my head. "Not something I want to talk about."

He retreated with a quickness. "Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, that question was out of line, probably. My bad." He started prattling on about something neutral, and I felt grateful to him for not pressing the question. That, in turn, made me feel more attracted to him. Which made me feel guiltier about the whole thing. I felt like I was being torn in half – half of me wanted Todd. I mean, he was pretty much the perfect guy. He was who I would have ended up with had this whole Yeerk thing never happened. Knowing that for a fact made it harder to acknowledge my other half.

The other half was all Tobias. That half felt guilty not only for entertaining thoughts about me and Todd, but it felt guilty just giving him the time of day. It kept insisting on creating images of Tobias alone in his meadow. It threw random thoughts at me like, '_How would Tobias feel if he knew what you were doing right this second?_'

I sighed heavily, belatedly realizing I'd cut Todd off in the middle of a story. I looked at him apologetically. "Sorry." I'd had enough of feeling conflicted and confused for one night. "I think…I'm going to go. Sorry," I said again, and stood up to leave.

Todd stood up, too, looking hurt. My first instinct was to comfort that hurt away. "Okay." He seemed to chew on a couple of different things to say, and settled on, "It was cool talking to you. I'm glad I know you now. Maybe I'll see you around at another one of these, someday?" He didn't look hopeful.

He never tried to close the deal. Never tried to get me in bed. Never tried to impress me with football stories or name-dropping or anything else lame like that. I liked that about him; liked it too much. "I doubt it," I told him. "But I'm glad I know you, too." Before I knew what I was doing, I had leaned over, ignored his surprised expression, and kissed him.

It wasn't some overblown, passionate kiss; just a peck on the lips. People in Europe kissed each other good-bye like that all the time. We weren't _in _Europe, though, and I belatedly realized there were probably over a dozen kids whom I went to school with looking at us right that moment. I had a sinking feeling that I'd done something regrettable, even though Todd just gave me an uncertain smile before walking away, leaving me standing alone.

I couldn't make it into the house before the vultures descended. A girl whom I'd known since Kindergarten – probably the reason she felt comfortable enough to approach me by herself – came at me, just wringing her hands. "Rachel! Oh my God! Are you and Todd…?"

I stuck my finger in her face, and she backed off. "No. Me and Todd _nothing_, and you'd better remember it, Jen."

"Hey, Rachel, right?" a guy said, and I sighed. Getting out of this party was going to be harder than I thought. I turned to see Fat Matt standing there.

I opened my mouth to tell him to shove off, but he spoke first. "Just wanted to tell you that your boy Marco is in trouble. Your cousin is with him, but I dunno…"

"Where?" I demanded. He pointed back inside of the house, and I charged in, shoving people out of the way. I ignored their protests as I elbowed my way into the living room, where the crowd had cleared away, leaving a wide circle in the middle of the room.

In the middle were Marco, Jake, and three guys I didn't know. Big guys. Someone had turned off the music. Marco looked a little drunk and bewildered. Jake was trying to look calm and fearless, and doing a pretty good job.

One of the guys in the circle – I think his name was Rusty - spoke. "This isn't any of your business, Jake. Marco spilled my drink, then he insulted me. This is between me and him."

"If it's between you two, why are your two goons with you?" Jake asked mildly. Rusty just stared him down, and Jake actually grinned. "Oh, I get it. Because they think that I'm going to jump in, and they think I can take you."

"Ha!" one of the guy's cronies laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. Jake took it as a sign of acknowledgement and nodded.

"That's what I thought. Now, what did Marco say to you that was so bad?" Jake demanded. "Because we can always get you a new drink to replace the one he spilled."

"I don't remember," Rusty said, and it was clear to me that he was lying. It was clear to Jake, too.

"So, you're just looking for a fight. Marco's not interested in fighting you, and I don't blame him. You're like three weight classes above him. Why don't you go start some noise with somebody your size?"

The situation was quickly spiraling out of control for Rusty, and he could feel it. He'd started out as the aggressor, the tough guy. Jake was making him look like a punk. A _stupid _punk. He seemed to realize if he didn't do something to seize back the momentum, he'd never live it down.

"Somebody like you?" Rusty asked Jake pointedly. "You're my size. You want some of this?" The crowd murmured its approval – looked like they were going to get to see a fight, after all.

Jake shrugged. "Not really. But if you insist, we can throw down. I'm not much of a fighter, but you're pretty much asking for it." Jake looked him dead in the eye. He was perfectly calm when he said, "No more talk. Talking's done. Either we're going to fight or we're not, but no more talking about it. Make your move." He pushed Marco to the side and squared off with Rusty, arms by his side. His intentions were clear – Jake didn't want a fight, wasn't asking for it, but if Rusty made a move, it was going to happen.

The room was holding its breath, waiting to see what Rusty would do. In the end, he made the wrong choice.

Jake blocked most of Rusty's first punch on his arm and fired one back with impressive speed. Rusty took it on the chin and stumbled, and Jake pressed his advantage. He hit Rusty in the stomach with a hard knee, and the bully went down like a sack of produce.

One of Rusty's friends went to slug Jake while he was distracted, and I just reacted. I caught the guy around the throat and choke-slammed him to the hardwood floor. I'd gotten the advantage because he hadn't been expecting to be attacked by me, but the result was still impressive; he lay on the ground, groaning and gurgling. The other guy backed away from the scene with his hands up.

Jake wasn't even breathing heavy. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked around. "Anybody else? Any takers?" Nobody said anything. "Good. I've had enough of this party, anyway." He cocked his head at Marco and I, and we followed him through the door.

The three of us walked onto the golf course, heading for the woods on the side of the fourteenth fairway. Nobody said anything for a few minutes. Marco finally did as we reached the tree line.

"I say we never talk about this night," he said. "Nobody has to know that I punked out of a fight. Nobody has to know Jake got into a scuffle with Rusty. Nobody has to know that Rachel kissed Todd. Agreed?"

"How did _you_ know?" I blurted, too stunned to deny it.

"You did _what?_" Jake asked me at the same time.

Marco smirked a little. "Is it important? I vote we never talk about it," he repeated meaningfully. "Any of it. Agreed?"

"Agreed," I said. I didn't know if I was going to tell Tobias or not; I still didn't have it all sorted out. But I knew I wanted the option to bring it up on my terms, if it ever _did_ come up.

"Agreed," Jake repeated. "But I have to know – _did _you say anything to Rusty to piss him off?"

Marco blushed. "I told him he had pretty hair, after I spilled his drink." I started laughing uncontrollably, and a second later, Jake joined in. Marco grinned. "I didn't know he was going to take it so _seriously_. I was trying to make peace."

"You should have let Rusty pound him," I told Jake as soon as I could breathe again. Jake agreed.

"All I know is I never want to go to another party again," Jake said seriously. "Talk about stressful. I'd almost rather hit the Yeerk pool."

And that was one thing all three of us agreed with. Yeerks? Yeah, that could be stressful…but they were small potatoes, compared to the horror of a high school party.


End file.
